Roman's Cheap, Thus I Scream
by Redler Red7
Summary: Blake gets kidnapped and is forced to pay a heavy price. Based on a text post by Tumblr user xekstrin


**A quick little one-shot inspired by a recent-ish text post by tumblr user xekstrin. Enjoy if you can - if you can't, I apologize.  
**

 **RWBY**

Blake was vaguely aware of her surroundings when she woke up. She quickly figured out that her wrists and ankles were tied together by plastic handcuffs. It also didn't take long to notice that she was blind folded - she originally thought it was just very dark, until she remembered that she had near-perfect night vision.

It was soon apparent that she had been kidnapped as she felt the inertia normally felt from the acceleration, turning, and breaking of a car. She couldn't help but notice that the car she was in had bad suspension. In any case, though some bizarre, unexplained circumstances, she was suddenly whisked away in her sleep, bound and blindfolded, and put in a car going who knows where.

Blake felt the car come to a stop, though the engines were still running. Her ears twitched as she heard the distinct sound of fabric dragging over leather. Assuming she was in the back seat, she inferred that someone in front who was wearing a long sleeved garment was reaching towards her. She tried to fling herself to the side but was too late - her kidnapper had already grabbed hold of her hair.

"Oh, sit still why don't you? Do you want the blind fold off or not?"

Blake froze upon hearing that familiar voice. "Torchwick?"

With the blindfold off, Blake was immediately met with a mildly annoyed half smile of none other than Roman Torchwick. "Evening, Kitty Cat," he greeted, before turning away from her and returning his attention to driving.

Why did he kidnap her? Of all the things to do, why break into beacon and steal a single girl from the dorms? Not even a very important rich-girl like Weiss. Just little old Blake - no shoes and still wearing her night dress. Was it because she was ex-white fang? Did he have some sort of personal vendetta against her? Who knows. She sure didn't.

Blake set her confusion aside as she scanned her surroundings. It was the inside of a car - what model, she wasn't sure. The seats were all black leather though a number of pillows were stacked on the seat next to her. A bunch of personal memorabilia decorated the top of the dashboard and the space behind the back seats and rear windshields. Hand-made plush dolls, strangely enough. Overall, not what Blake expected to see when she imagined what Roman Torchwick's car would look like.

"None of those are mine, by the way," Roman said, looking at her from the rear view mirror. "This whole car isn't mine, even."

Blake gave him an incredulous look. "You stole this?" she asked. She watched Roman's dry stare through the mirror for a second before realizing what she just said. " _Of course_ you stole this," she muttered.

Only Roman's eyes were visible but she could already tell he was smiling. "Atta girl."

With a sigh, she returned to looking around, noting how it was still the middle of the night. The orange street lights flitting by outside were the biggest tells for where she was - none of the quote-unquote _"good"_ parts of town looked this dark. Still, she was familiar enough with the place that it didn't intimidate her. She at least knew where she was - they were definitely near the refueling station south of the slums.

The sound of the engines went uncontested for a minute, quietly humming as the car sped up and slowed down. "Why did you kidnap me?" Blake asked, breaking the silence. "Seriously. What the hell?"

"Oh, you'll know the reason," Roman answered dismissively.

When he stopped at a red light, he opened to glove compartment and took out a pair of scissors. He then turned towards Blake. "Hold out your hands." He cut her bindings on her wrists. He did the same for her ankles.

Blake massaged her wrists, which felt somewhat sore from the unspecified amount of time they were bound. She glanced at the plain-looking non-reinforced doors and windows on either side of her. "You know, there's nothing stopping me from just breaking open those doors and leaving now, right?" she muttered.

"Oh, I know," he said nonchalantly. The light turned green and Roman drove the car forward again. "But you won't," he added with the same amount of confidence.

Blake raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"You still wanna know what I'm up to, right?"

Blake eyed the back of Roman's seat, glancing at him through the rear view mirror now and again. She remained silent, not deeming to give him an answer. He chuckled anyway.

They arrived at their destination without much incident. It was closed down building. It didn't look old or decrepit - quite the opposite - but it _did_ look like it had recently taken a beating. Perhaps some sort of gang fight occurred inside it? In any case, Roman led her to the entrance and ushered her in. The double doors said closed but were unlocked, which somehow didn't surprise Blake in the slightest. She stepped inside.

There was a long hallway past the doors they entered from and another set of double doors on the other side. Roman gestured for her to move forward and she complied.

"I've noticed," Blake began, "that you've been laying low for a couple of weeks. What are you planning?"

"Getting nosy, kid? Didn't you know? Curiosity killed the cat." Blake gave the joke no comment, which was somehow very funny to Roman. After a brief chuckle, her have a vague answer. "The guys in charge have something cooking. You'll figure it out in time."

"By then it'll be too late," Blake muttered.

"Yes, I do believe it will."

The double doors opened up to a large cavernous room. It looked like the place used to be dance club of sorts before a fight broke out. The electronic dance floor in the center of the room looked like it lit up but wasn't currently powered. Several tiles had been removed while the remaining tiles seemed to have been embedded into the ground, cracks extending radially from the center tile, which had a vaguely fist-shaped indent. Chairs and tables were pressed up against the wall. Some of them were brand new but a good number of them looked damaged. The windows were all covered with plywood, with replacements window panes stacked in a corner, waiting to be installed.

With the amount of property damage, Blake wondered what kind of fight could have possibly taken place.

Roman led her to a bar counter - on of the few undamaged things in the room that didn't look completely brand new. He sat down and she did the same.

"You want some ice cream? My treat."

Blake stared at him in confusion. Ice cream? What?

Roman frowned. "What? I was trying to be nice. Neo here is a bit of an ice cream fanatic. She's got every flavor available in the market - legal or not."

Blake nearly jumped. Behind the counter was suddenly that girl in pink from the White Fang meeting. It was like she just appeared there - no sound or any indication of movement whatsoever.

"I'd like you to meet Neopolitan, my close friend and business partner. I know you've met already but consider this a formal introduction."

Blake stared at she impassively, to which Neo responded with a condescending grin. Already, Blake could tell that, much like with Roman, she and Neo would never get along, regardless of what side of the law they stood.

Neo leaned forward onto the counter, bringing her face somewhat closer to Blake's. The same smile remained on her face, yet the slight tilt of her head suggested curiosity. Was she... taking Blake's order?

"Uh...?"

"Come on. Just pick a flavor," Roman said.

Blake tried to keep a straight face at the bizarre situation she was in, trying very hard not to feign disinterest at the prospect of free ice cream. She fared rather poorly as her ears stood up in excitement. The two gave her a knowing smile and stared at her expectantly.

It continued for several more seconds before Blake couldn't take it anymore. It was too disconcerting. "Vanilla," she answered if only just to get them to stop.

"Pumpkin spice for me," Roman added, chuckling in amusement.

With a similarly amused smile, Neo disappeared under the counter and very quickly reappeared with two bowls of their requested flavors. She slid the bowls to them and produced two spoons seemingly out of nowhere, briefly twirling them before holding them forward. The smirk on her face suggested that she was trying to show off.

Blake took the spoon and reluctantly started eating.

"Thank you, Neo. Always a pleasure." Roman accepted his own spoon and stabbed it into his ice cream. He then pulled out his wallet for the payment.

Blake went wide eyed and stood up, knocking down her chair and dropping her spoon in the process. "That's _my_ wallet," she yelled in outrage.

Roman rolled his eyes. "Well, _of course_ it's _your_ wallet. If I were paying with _my own money_ , then I would never have offered to treat you."

"But... but... That's so petty! Why would you kidnap someone just so they could pay for your ice cream!? It's so stupid!"

Roman looked at her in mock innocence. "Why, _I'm offended_ , Kitty Cat. I didn't kidnap you just so you could pay for my ice cream." He grinned. "I also kidnapped you so you could pay for _your_ ice cream."

Blake stood there, so enraged, so completely infuriated, that she said nothing. No amount of words nor any action could adequately express how angry she was. Thus, she sighed, picked the chair, and sat. Neo offered a new spoon which she wordlessly accepted. She then began eating her ice cream.

 **RWBY**

"Blake, are you okay?"

Blake blinked and turned to the rest of her team who were staring at her, worried. "I'm fine," she answered groggily. "I just didn't get a good night's sleep. I had a bad dream."

"What was it about?"

Blake grimaced. "I don't wanna talk about it..."

 **RWBY**

 **Technically, this little fic was supposed to be finished over two days ago but due to an unfortunate power outage, I lost half of my progress and lost my enthusiasm for writing it. At least it's out now.  
**

 **If we're going by the canon _RWBY_ timeline, this chapter most likely takes place some time after episode 4 of volume 2 but before episode 8. The prom arc, basically (which I pretend did not happen.) Ultimately, the ******chronology doesn't matter, but if you're a stickler for that sort of thing then here you go.****

 ** **It's been a looong time since I've written these characters using their actual names. If you aren't aware, I've been writing a crossover fic called _Remnant Online_ and just about every character uses their weapon names as their user names. It's surreal, honestly.  
****


End file.
